Charles "Chuck" Pilon Part 1
Interviewed by Karen Underhill
Camera by Susan McGlothlin
October 21, 2011
Underhill: So I will set the stage here. It is Friday, October 21, 2011, and we’re in the Cline Library Presidents Room. This will be an interview with Charles, aka Chuck, Pilon. Present in the room is Susan McGlothlin, who is assisting with the camera. This is part of the Lumberjacks Timbers Project, as we call it, so an oral history project with alumni.
Pilon: That’s great.
Underhill: So Chuck, if we could, could you please start with where and when you were born?
Pilon: I was born in Durango, Colorado-the original Durango Kid. I was born February 23, 1933, in a home with no attending physician. The home was still there [unclear] make it a national monument one of these days. But I’ve been bragging for years that I was born in that house. I told my entire family, all my children and everything, until I told the story to my mother, and my mother said, "You weren’t born in that house, you were born down the street in this house." So the park service has had to change their signs. Just kidding!
Underhill: What was your early childhood like, who were your parents?
Pilon: Well, my early childhood was very different maybe from some people. My dad was a cowboy. He was a working cowboy south of Durango, in the earliest ranches, and he made a dollar a day. I always knew that as a kid, and even as a kid I thought, "That doesn’t sound like very much money." But a dollar a day. I thought I had a great life. We lived with my maternal grandmother and grandfather, who was a railroad worker for the Denver Rio Grande Railroad. And that’s how I got all the free rides on the Durango Silverton Railroad, which is very famous today as a tourist attraction. I hated riding that train because it scared the dickens out of me going to Silverton to see my other grandmother, my dad’s mom. And I went through school in Durango, Colorado, Park School, to the fourth grade. I started the fourth grade there. Absolutely loved going to school there. And I must have been underprivileged a little bit-didn’t know it-because one of my teachers would pick me up almost every Saturday-my third-grade teacher-in a great big huge Buick car-and take me and a number of kids for sometimes an ice cream cone, sometimes a picnic where Fort Lewis College is located now. I realized later that yeah, we were from a lower socio-economic family, and I think she kind of felt sorry for me. I was a pretty good student. She wrote a lot of notes to my mother about this wonderful little boy, Charles. I loved that lady, and I visited her on my honeymoon.
Underhill: And what is her name?
Pilon: Her name was Frances Baldino. Miss Baldino, and I just loved her. And we had to move away because my dad got a job on the railroad in Winslow, making $200 a month.
Underhill: Wow.
Pilon: Yes, from a dollar a day to $200 a month. So we moved to Winslow, and that’s where I spent the remainder of my elementary school days, and graduated from Winslow High School.
Underhill: And what year did you graduate?
Pilon: I graduated in 1951, and just less than a month ago I celebrated my sixtieth high school reunion with fifteen of my classmates, at the famous La Posada Hotel in Winslow.
Underhill: Fabulous.
Pilon: And it was just wonderful. I mean, it was so great to be with those people. Some of them I hadn’t seen in sixty years.
Underhill: And when you were in high school, what sorts of activities were you engaged in, what were your interests?
Pilon: I would call myself probably an athlete. I played football and baseball for Winslow High School. I was also interested in plays. I had the lead part in my junior class play, and had a supporting role in my senior class play. And I liked to sing in the glee club, and I played in the band until I was a freshman in high school. My football coach said, "You either play in the band, or you play football. Which one do you want?" Now, as an adult, I should have stayed with the band. I could have been a decent musician today, because I never was a pro football player-although I did play football here at NAU, was on the team here.
Underhill: So after high school, did you go into the military?
Pilon: Yeah, after high school was another great big huge chapter for me because Korea was really bad. South Korea was invaded in June of 1950, and in 1951 it was even getting hotter. It was just a terrible situation. I didn’t want to get drafted, because I didn’t want to go to Korea. They were sending all the Army guys over there. I didn’t want to join the Marine Corps, because they were going to Korea. Didn’t want to join the Navy because I can’t swim. So I joined the Air Force. I saw a poster across the street from the drugstore of the famous "Standing on the Corner in Winslow Arizona." I looked out the window and I thought, "Well, my parents don’t have the money to send me to college." I did receive one football scholarship when I was in high school, to Eastern Arizona College at Thatcher, but I didn’t want to play football for such a big, fantastic.... No, I’m just kidding. I didn’t want to go to school there. And this buddy of mine said, "What are you going to do?" And I said, "Gee, I don’t know." I looked across the street at the poster, and it had a picture of a blue-clad Airman, in a pretty blue uniform. And he had his finger pointed out, sort of in the Uncle Sam pose, and he said, "And you too can wear the blue." Kind of a little rhyme. I thought, "I’d look good in that." So I went across the street without consulting anybody, and I said, "I want to join the Air Force." He said, "Do you want to join for four years or six years?" How dumb I was, I said, "Gee, I don’t know." I think he felt sorry for me. He said, "I’ll tell you what, I’ll put you down for four. If you like it, then you can re-sign for six." "Oh! that’s a good idea!" So I did, and soon after I found myself in Korea, so everybody was going over there. So I left Winslow on a Trailways Bus for Phoenix, took a physical exam, and boarded a train headed for San Antonio, Texas, Lackland Air Force Base, where I went through my first two weeks of basic training. And because it was so crowded with so many men joining the Air Force-an all-volunteer Air Force, always has been, and still is-we had a fifty-something-bus convoy, Greyhound Bus convoy, that shipped the entire squadron and part of the wing to Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, where I finished my basic training. And when I finished there, lo and behold I’m assigned to the army! I’m Air Force and they assign me to the 4th Army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, back to San Antonio, to train as a combat medic. I was training and graduated from medical field combat school, and was trained to be a company aid man with an infantry platoon. And the rumor was we were going to be assigned to the infantry and go straight to Korea. And medics at that time had like a fifteen-minute lifespan, and that scared me. So after I graduated Fort Sam Houston, when I was not assigned to an infantry unit, assigned back to an Air Force squadron, and soon after I flew air-and-sea rescue as a crewman. And then eventually went on air evac and we evacuated people from Korea that were hit, and a lot of KIAs brought back home.
Underhill: And after Korea [unclear].
Pilon: Well, I was discharged in ’55, and I thought very seriously about going to the University of Notre Dame. But then I’d been gone for four years, and I didn’t have many leaves home. I don’t know if I should say this in this interview or not, but I was very serious with a young girl in high school, and it took about a month for her to write me a Dear John, and that just tore me up. Anyway, I thought, "I think I’m going to stick around home." And I always liked Arizona State College in Flagstaff, Arizona. And there’s something about the college I just loved. My coach was a college graduate from Arizona State College, and was my football coach in high school. He was a big all-American here at NAU, and captain of the football team, drafted by the Rams. He made such an impression on my life. And I thought about him, and he was always promoting ASC. So I applied, and when I got that little tiny certificate in the mail that said, "Certificate of Admission. You are hereby admitted to Arizona State College in Flagstaff," I thought that was like the greatest certificate I ever received in my life! I equal that to my honorable discharge.
And so I got up and came here and boy, I’ve never been sorry for one day-not one day. It’s been an experience and a half.
Underhill: That’s wonderful. So when you came, you were a seasoned war veteran. You were four years older than most freshmen. (Pilon: Right.) What were your impressions, your first impressions?
Pilon: You know, I just got through telling the story today to somebody for some reason. My impression was, "Oh, my God, I hope I don’t fail." I hadn’t hit a book in four years. I was not a fabulous student in high school, although I never failed anything. I was like a "C" student-didn’t study. If I’d have studied, maybe I could have been an "A" student. Never made National Honor Society or anything like that, because I didn’t study. I had a lot of fun. I was a serious student, but I didn’t think beyond high school. And then in service I didn’t think beyond four years, because I thought, "Well, four years is never going to end. It’s going to last forever." And then sometimes while I was in, I didn’t think I’d make it back. I thought, "I’m not going to survive this. I just won’t make it."
But then when I got here, I was scared because I didn’t want to fail. And I felt challenged because I was trying as hard as I could, and I made up my mind, "I’m not going to fail, I’m going to be a success." Because my ambition from the time I was a little boy was, "I have to go to college and graduate some day, and I have to marry a girl that graduated from college. And all my children, however many amount we have, they have to go to college." That was some kind of a dream that I had, and this ideal was very important to me. And so I studied like crazy here, and my freshman year I had one date. I played football and baseball, didn’t do anything else but study. And I was very successful, I made the dean’s list both semesters, because of my professors. I mean, they took me under their [wing]. They recognized I was [unclear]. I didn’t have any civilian clothes, I wore my uniform to class. I took everything [i.e., insignia] off, but they recognized I was wearing a uniform. In the wintertime I’m wearing my field jacket, my flight jacket. They recognized. But my attitude was, "Why is everybody so happy here on this campus? Why are people laughing? Don’t you realize what took place over there?" I mean, there were guys that were dying over there, and maimed-they’re walking around here today. And I had a chip on my shoulder, and I had problems with that. And a man by the name of Dr. Virgil Gillenwater-Gillenwater Hall was named after him-who was executive vice-president of the university, one day met me on the sidewalk in front of the old library, Gammage. He said, "Chuck, how you doin’?" I said, "Well, I’m studying real hard, and still kind of scared." He said, "Well, you’re pretty successful. You’ve done very well here. I know." We had less than a thousand students, so he knew everybody. And he said, "When you get a chance, would you come over and talk with me. I want to talk to you." I didn’t think anything of it. And I said, "Sure, when?" He said, "You free this afternoon?" Well, I lived in the library. I said, "Well, I was going to the library, but I guess I could go afterwards." He said, "C’mon over to my office," in Gammage. And I walked over, we sat down, he said, "How are things going? How are you adjusting? You were in the Air Force-where did you go?" and so forth and so on. And I started getting a little testy, with that chip on my shoulder-but not testy towards him, because he was such a great man. He said, "Just a minute, let me close the door." So he closed the door, which appeared to be normal to me. I thought, you know, he wants privacy. But as I learned later what a great psychologist he was, he closed the door, and on the back of his door was a marine corps dress uniform, sharp as could be, with all of his ribbons and the major oak leaf cluster on his shoulder. And of course I zeroed in on the ribbons because I had a few myself. I recognized the Purple Heart, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, five Bronze Stars on the Asiatic Pacific Medal, which meant five major engagements. And I just, "Oh!" I know that I thought, "Oh my God!" And he never said a word. He never said a word, and I stared at that uniform, I stared at him, and he said, "Anything else we need to talk about?" I wanted to say, "No sir, I got the message. You’ve been through it and you survived and you’re doin’ okay, and ‘Chuck, you need to straighten up and lighten up!’" That’s the greatest thing that happened to me concerning that particular aspect of my life. And after that, I was okay. What a great thing he did! He didn’t lecture me, he didn’t chew me out, he didn’t scream and yell at me. He just closed the door and let me look at his uniform. I found out later he’d been a Marine Corps raider in the South Pacific and had a great combat record, and so I loved the man.
Underhill: What was campus like at that time-a mix of returning veterans?
Pilon: There were a lot of returning Korean War veterans. Some of my professors were World War II veterans. Dr. Charles Meister, who I loved, he was my English teacher, he was a staff judge advocate at the Nuremberg trials in Germany. He took me under his wing. He said, "I’ll show you how to be a good student," and he gave me some suggestions. I followed them to the letter. And Francis Davern was a Flying Tiger in World War II. He was an education professor here. Oh gosh, there were a lot of World War II veterans [who were] professors. But a lot of the students were returning veterans, and we knew each other, and it kind of formed an unofficial group with great camaraderie. We didn’t necessarily talk about our war experiences or anything like that, but we just knew what each other was going through. And one particular veteran I remember really had some traumatic experiences. He was having hallucinations that they were still after him and everything, and we took care of him. We looked after him, took care of him, and he was one of us. We were all on the G.I. Bill. I can remember my G.I. check being late every so often. It was Public Law 550. And I’d walk into the registrar’s office, which was in Gammage-Mr. Hensley was the registrar-"Mr. Hensley," I said, "my check hasn’t come in yet, and I need to register for the next semester." "Don’t worry about it. Register for classes and let me know when it comes in." That’s the way things were done then.
Underhill: That’s great.
Pilon: That’s the way things were. You couldn’t do that now for anything. You could not do it. They’d say, "Sorry, you’ll have to leave the university." But he understood, he knew. And he played kind of favorites with the returning veterans. He treated us real well. And I think everybody on campus recognized that. But yeah, you’re right, I was four years older than my roommate that was an incoming freshman student from North High.
Underhill: How did that go?
Pilon: Oh, it wasn’t good. He was crying one night, laying in his bunk. Crying! I thought he was sick, so I turned on the light and I said, "Kenny, what’s wrong? Tell me, why are you crying?" He said, "I miss my girlfriend." I thought, "You’ve gotta be kidding me!" I said, "Well, where is your girlfriend?" I expected him to say, "New York City." [He said], "Phoenix." I said, "Oh, man, I’ve been gone for four years! Don’t tell me this stuff!" Kind of a funny incident occurred with him one time. I had just gotten back from football practice and I was really sore. I crawled into my bunk in Bury Hall, and I’m laying there, trying to relax, because I was really getting beat that day, and he came in crying, soaking wet! And he turned on the light, I looked at him, and he was crying, literally crying, and it was a cry of pain, a different sort of cry than he had that night missing his girlfriend. I jumped up and I said, "Kenny, what happened to you, what’s going on?!" He said, "The Chain Gang beat me." And that was the day that they did that hazing, and they beat him. Oh, he took down his pants and showed me. I mean this guy probably should have been in the emergency room-broken blood vessels all over his back and his buttocks and his legs. It just made me furious. I thought, "God, do we have a POW here that’s been taken care of?!" And he was soaking wet, they’d hosed him down. And he said, "They’re coming back to get me." And I said, "Well, they’re not taking you." "They’re going to force me! These guys are mean!" They were the Chain Gang! I mean, they ruled the campus. So sure enough, they opened up the door-we didn’t lock our doors-I could have-he opened up the door and said, "Okay, freshman, get out here!" I said, "You need to get out of here!" And he said, "You too! you’re a freshman!" And I very dramatically-I’ll never forget this-said, "Yeah, and before then I was a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force in Korea." And they said, "Oh, well you’re exempt." Veterans, of course, didn’t have to go through hazing.
Underhill: Or wear a beanie?
Pilon: Or wear a beanie. We wouldn’t have taken that, and they knew it! And he said [to my roommate], "Well, you’re not a veteran. Come on!" I said, "No, you’re not taking him out of here. You’ve done enough damage to him already." "Well, we’re taking him out anyway!" I said, "Well, you have to come through me." And some of those guys, I didn’t want to tangle with, but I bluffed them, so they left him in the room. Needless to say, two years later, I was nominated for the Chain Gang, which was kind of an honor at the time. And I was not given membership. They remembered that incident! Every time I see the Chain Gang today, I think about that incident.
Underhill: We won’t bring out the sweater!
Pilon: It’s like red with [unclear].
Underhill: And where did you eat, was there just a single dining hall?
Pilon: Yeah, there was one dining hall, and it is now the conference room that they call the 1899 Grill Conference Room. The High Country Center or something. No, the High Country Center is across the street. In fact, I just came from there, from a meeting. And that was the dining hall. And the Union Building was truly a union building. There were pool tables upstairs, and ping pong tables, and the beautiful copper fireplace was a true fireplace with logs and everything. And the windows, you could look out and see the San Francisco Peaks, which you can do anymore because [unclear]. And the little tiny book store was in there, which didn’t sell any apparel whatsoever-strictly books, pens, and pencils. And the post office was there, all the students had their little mailbox. And there was a snack bar behind there called the Timber Inn, and we could get hamburgers there. Then on certain nights, you could dance. They’d turn on the juke box and you could dance. It was just great. And it was only the north part of the campus. There was nothing here, this was all forest. South Campus was all forest. The furthest you could go north that would have anything that would be civilization, would be the stone cottages, which is now a parking place right next to the field house, just west of the field house there-which [unclear] lived in when I got married. But yeah, that was our campus. Married housing was the furthest ... south, I meant. The furthest north was the Union Building. It was just a little intimate campus, the north campus. And it was fabulous. Well, it just set the tone for me with NAU. I just loved the place, and still do.
Underhill: And what did you study when you were here?
Pilon: I started out being-I didn’t study it, but I started out, my ambition was, I was going to be a football coach. And I did become a football coach. But I didn’t want to be a P.E. major. That just didn’t appeal to me as a field of academics. I wanted to have an academic degree, so I studied social science. And at that time social science was not any of the disciplines that we have now, separately, like you study political science, anthropology, sociology. You had to study them all, because there was just only one social science department. So I concentrated on sociology, but I took, of course, a lot of political science and anthropology, and all the rest of the social sciences-history, geography. And I hit it lucky, because I studied under a giant, a giant of a man, a man by the name of Dr. Edward Walker, who was a one-man show in sociology here. And I just thought he was the epitome of knowledge. And I did my graduate work at the University of Notre Dame. And when I was being interviewed for my doctorate there, the chairman of the department wasn’t too interested in me. He wasn’t rude, but he wasn’t very interested in me, and he was just kind of going through the routine of whether I was going to be accepted or not. "Where did you study?" "Arizona State College in Flagstaff, Arizona." "Oh. Where is that?" I said, "Well, it’s in Northern Arizona, [unclear] in Flagstaff." "Oh yeah. Who did you study under?," like it was some big university, you know. And I told him the truth, I said I studied under a man by the name of Dr. Edward Walker. He sat forward in his chair and he said, "Edward Walker?!" I said, "Yes." "We use his books here," and he pulled them down. "This is the man you studied under?" and it had a picture of him in the inside cover. I said, "Yes, that’s him." He said, "Did you know that he set up the sociology school at Stanford University? He’s thought of as a giant in this field." I said, "Yes, I knew that." I didn’t, but I could have guessed. And I don’t think he made another statement [other than], "Oh, fine. Well, see my secretary, and you just fill out these papers, and congratulations." There was no problem whatsoever. He was recognized nationally as a giant in his field. And I came back and told the story to Dr. Walker one time. He just got a kick out of it. "Well, I tried to convince you one time that I was very famous." We laughed about it, you know. But, what a great man. I was so lucky to have the professors that I did have here. All buildings are named after [them]. Dr. Tinsley was my history professor. Dr. Gillenwater, a great man. Dr. Allen, my science professor. I mean, all the names on the buildings, I was so lucky to have the faculty that I had. They were great people, they were interested in every student, didn’t want any of us to fail, would do anything to keep us here and make us successful. It was a great experience.
Underhill: One of the questions we ask, which you’ve really just answered, is how valuable was your experience and education here, that set you on the path....
Pilon: I think it was really valuable. You only get what you put into it, you know. And because I wanted to be a good student, and I wasn’t such a good student in high school.... I was very successful in the military, I won a lot of awards in the military for achievement, and I guess you could call it academic, but it’s not the same as college. But I wanted to be successful, and I worked so very, very hard at it. It didn’t come automatic to me. But I got such a great opportunity to be successful here. I mean, it was not difficult at all. And all the great things that have ever happened to me in my life-and I’ve been lucky-they kind of all fall back on my background at NAU. I love this place.
Underhill: What were the big issues on campus during your time-1955 to 1959.
Pilon: Well, internally, one of the big issues was the food. NAU did not have a registered, certified dietician. It was a lady from town that prepared the meals for the staff. It was okay to me. I’d been eating military food-you know, better than "C" rations, "K" rations. But there was a big food fight one time in the dining hall, which I thoroughly disagreed with. I mean, I thought people don’t understand-you don’t know what’s good or bad. I mean, this is pretty good. And Dr. Eastburn was the first president that I served under here as a student. He would go out and hunt a buffalo, and bring the buffalo back, and that’s what we would have to eat for weeks on end. I loved it. It was fresh meat, it was prepared well. But that was a big problem for students-food. That was an internal problem. Other problems were what is going to happen with this college with the launching of Sputnik? The emphasis became science and math here, and all of us were going to switch over our majors to science and math because we had to meet this challenge. Oh, there was still partisan politics issues here. I remember we, just a group of us, invited Senator Barry Goldwater to speak on campus. Dr. Walkup was of the opposite political party, so we were kind of chewed out. And he said, "Don’t you ever invite anybody to this campus again without notifying me who it’s going to be." And we never made that mistake again. Another issue, which is kind of humorous now as I look back, after I got married we lived in married housing, and we all received a notice in our mailboxes that the rent was going to go up for the cottages, married families, from $35 to $40 a month. And of course all utilities were paid, all we paid was just rent. But they were very crude. We did have running water and electricity and everything, but pretty crude. The showers I wouldn’t brag about, or anything else. But hey, we’re college students. And I’d been living in a tent, so I thought it was great. And so I was like appointed or some.... There were fifty cottages, and they appointed me as the chairman to get a petition signed and take it to Dr. Walkup and petition that this was unfair, and we wanted it lowered back to $35. Still hadn’t made one $40 payment, though. And so I made an appointment, very nervous-like, with Dr. Walkup. I think I was one of the few returning veterans that was married, too, at the time. Maybe that’s why they picked me, I don’t know. But I walked into Dr. Walkup’s office, a very nervous individual-I’m facing the president, you know. "Dr. Walkup, I need to discuss something with you." And of course the appointment was made beforehand. And he looked up at me-such a relaxed man anyway-and he said, "What’s the problem?" I said, "Well, Dr. Walkup, you’ve raised the rent...." And I went through the entire scenario. And he said, "Well, what do you want?" I said, "We’d like it to remain $35. We’re having a hard time. Only make $110 a month, my G.I. Bill." "Oh. Well, I didn’t realize that. Okay. It’s going to be $35." And I expected a big argument and everything else. So I went back and told the rest of the fifty families, I said, "Hey, it’s going to remain $35." I was the big here. I was the big hero on campus for a while with the married families. But Dr. Walkup was a great man, and I so respected him. He was such a great man to me. You could talk to him any time about any problem. And he remained that way with me for the rest of his life. I considered him a good friend.
Underhill: Did you call him Larry?
Pilon: I never did. I never could get myself to call him Larry. And I can’t to this day call his wife Lucy. It’s Mrs. Walkup, and she always corrects me. And she was there at the luncheon today, that I attended, and Mrs. Walkup. "It’s Lucy, Chuck." And I said, "Not to me." No, it was always Dr. Walkup.
Underhill: And how did you meet your wife?
Pilon: Interesting story, because she was a freshman, I was a sophomore. I’d just gotten out of football practice, and the statement made in the locker room was, "Hey, all the freshmen are here today. They’re coming in today." And this was in the evening at practice. "Let’s all go over and date freshmen girls!" And I thought, "That’s not a bad idea! I’ve only had one date since I’ve been here. I’d like to meet a freshman girl." So I did! I walked over, and I used the ruse of selling books. I took my freshman English book over, "Anyone want to buy a freshman English book?" I didn’t get any takers, but I spotted this little blond sitting down over there with her new roommate, and she was just.... I just kind of fell in love with her at first sight. I was like, "She is so pretty!" And I walked over to her, "Would you like to buy a freshman English book?" "No." I said, "Well, it’s hardly even used. I didn’t write in it or anything." "I want to buy a brand new book." But first, I forgot, one important thing: they had to wear a card that said, "Hi, I’m ..." and then they filled in their name, "from ..." and they put their hometown. So her card said, "Hi, I’m Linda Monroe from Phoenix, Arizona." And she had to wear a little blue-and-gold beanie. She had that on. And so I obviously looked at her card and I said, "Oh, hi, Linda Monroe," and she said, "I’m not related to Marilyn either." And I thought, "Oh, give me a break!" And she wouldn’t buy the book, so we talked for the longest time about the high school she went to, where she lived in Phoenix, and my parents had just moved down there. Then I used a very dumb line on her, I said, "You know, you don’t know much about Flagstaff. How about we make a deal. I’ll show you Flagstaff if you show me Phoenix?" She just kind of looked at me-never did answer. Our daughter is going to get a big kick out of that one. But anyway, I didn’t ask her for a date, but I thought, "I need to ask her for a date." I didn’t have guts enough to.
Underhill: Staff sergeant!
Pilon: Yeah! I went back to the dorm and I thought, "God, what if somebody else asks her for a date and I miss out?!" Because I heard somebody in the dorm say, "Did you see that girl, Linda Monroe? She’s really cute." "Stay away from her!" So I went back the next day, looking for her. I’m actually looking for her, and I have my letter jacket thrown over my shoulder, just playin’ the role. It wasn’t cold enough to wear a letter jacket, but I wanted her to see that I was a letterman on the football team here. And so I went back, looking desperately for her, in the Union Building, and I noticed somebody walk by me, but I didn’t look at them, but somebody said, "Hi, Chuck," and I just kind of said, "Hi. I’m looking for Linda Monroe." And it was her. And it kind of infuriated her, I found out later, that I didn’t even answer her. So she went and got in line, and the line stretched from the entrance to that conference room now, out into the Union Building, about in the middle of the Union Building, waiting to get in the dining room. The football team ate at a training table, so I’d already eaten. And so I looked over at the line and thought, "My God, that’s that girl!" So I kind of yelled at her, and I was too far away from her, really, to be doing that. I said, "Hey, Linda!" and she turned around and looked at me, and I said, "C’m’ere!" She said, "If you want to talk to me, you come over here!" And my daughter loved that! "Yeah! way to go, Mom!" So I thought, "Who does she think she is?!" as I’m walking towards her. So I talked with her and I asked her for a date. And we dated every single night the rest of the school year! That was in August, because they came up the first part of August. And that December, we were engaged. And the following August, we were married. And we just celebrated in August our fifty-fourth wedding anniversary.
Underhill: Congratulations!
Pilon: It was a good deal. It was a good decision on my part.
Underhill: And so what did you do for fun-you and your friends and Linda?
Pilon: Well, one of the greatest things we did for fun was go to movies. The Orpheum Theater downtown was just in great, great shape, so popular, all the movies of the day. And whenever we had any spare money, and the movie changed, that’s where we went.
And the other thing that we did, because it was such a great treat, is go to two or three little restaurants in town and order a hamburger, French fries, and a Coke, and maybe a piece of pie afterwards, if we had extra money. But that was kind of like our entertainment. Any athletic event on the campus was something we’d go to. Any concert, anything with the Shrine of the Ages Choir, plays we’d go to. We kind of made our own entertainment, in a way. And it was pretty unsophisticated. It was strictly around campus. We didn’t do much in town except go to the movies.
Underhill: How would you describe the relationship, the town-and-gown, [between] the college and Flagstaff?
Pilon: At the time, I didn’t have much to do with the town, but I do know at the time there was an organization called the Town Jacks. And they were an organization of Flagstaff businessmen who supported the college in athletics. And I thought that was petty neat. But it appeared to me, as a student, to be-there was a kind of a schism between the Flagstaff community and the college in that "those college kids really think they’re somethin’ else, and they’re not." And I know President Eastburn started a program, which I thought was great. I don’t know if it started with us, but it existed here. They called it Dollar Days, where you would turn in all money that you had-currency-for silver dollars. And then you’d take those silver dollars and spend them in Flagstaff to go to a movie, buy an article of clothing, to go to a restaurant, or whatever. And then that way the Flagstaff business community would recognize every silver dollar they got came from a college student. I thought that was great. I thought that was really great. And then we had a caravan that we did once a year at the beginning of the school year, where we would have a barbecue at the Grand Canyon. We’d drive in a huge, huge convoy of cars-we’d all carpool together, you know. I had a car. I was one of the few students who had a car here-bought it with my mustering-out pay. And we’d go to the Grand Canyon and they’d set up barbecue equipment there. The dining hall did it. And we’d have a big barbecue there and come back. And that was like a major date that I had with my wife, one of the first times I asked her to go. She trusted me, I guess, so she went to the Grand Canyon with me, and came back, and that kind of solidified the relationship even more.
Underhill: What kind of car was it?
Pilon: I had a ’55 Chevy that I paid a huge down payment on, getting out of the Air Force. I had $1,200 mustering-out pay. They get now $20,000-$30,000. Twelve hundred dollars, I think. And I paid $1,000 even, and my payments were $33 a month. I don’t know for how many months, but that was my car payment.
Underhill: And I should add you were married in 1957.
Pilon: I was married in ’57, that’s right. That’s correct.
Underhill: Did you have any children while you were here?
Pilon: We had our first born, a boy, born in Flagstaff, Terry. He’s a graduate of NAU. And that used to be something I’d dream about as I’m walking on the campus with Linda and him in the stroller. "I wonder what’s going to happen to him? [unclear] college?" And sure enough, he graduated from NAU, and that was a great day in my life, yeah. And we lived in Cottage City with him. I would schedule Linda’s classes so she would be with him or I would be with him. He was never without one of us while we were in school, except one semester there was a period of time for one class that there was nobody to take care of him. So I told Linda, "I will take him to class with me." And nothing was ever said! I would take him to class, and we’d sit there in class. It was great, I loved it! All the girls loved it-they’d come over and make over him and everything. But it only happened one time.
Underhill: How long did you play sports-all four years?
Pilon: No, I played two years of football here, and one year of baseball, and then I got an ACL injury in this leg, this knee. And at the time, they couldn’t even diagnose an ACL, so they just shot me full of cortisone and drained my knee-every third day, I think-of fluid. I went back and played a couple of games, and then after that the physicians told me-Dr. Dierker, I think it was-"If you continue to play, you will be crippled before you’re sixty." And of course I have a very bad knee today, it still gives me trouble. And I couldn’t play again, and I started coaching.
Underhill: In terms of the student body, you talked, of course, a little bit about this mix of veterans and the eighteen-year-old freshmen. How would you describe the diversity of the student body? Did you have native students, Native Americans, Hispanics?
Pilon: Good question. Most of the student body was Caucasian, but we did have a great percentage of the student body that was Hispanic. Everybody got along just great. Probably the next group would be Native Americans. The very last group would be black. When I was a student here, I had one black teammate on the football team, no black teammates on the baseball team. And we had the second black president of any major school or university in the nation. The very first was the great Olympian athlete, Rafer Johnson, who was student body president at UCLA. We were next with a guy by the name of Charlie Williams, who graduated from Flagstaff High School, and he won the student body presidency here. And it was a bitter, bitter, contested fight. I was on the committee to elect him. And there were terrible things that were said and done. There used to be a sign in front of the Union Building, which is now the 1899 Grill, that said, "Arizona State College, Home of the Lumberjacks." I loved that sign. The sign was changed during this campaign. It said, "Arizona State College, Home of the Blackjacks." That infuriated us, and really put Charlie down, and he wanted to withdraw. We said, "No, that’s going to cause you to win. We’re going to turn that around." And then there was another sign that was closer to Old Main that said something like, "Arizona State College in the Pines." Something like that. "Arizona State College in the Pines." And that sign was changed to read, "Arizona State College, Harlem in the Pines." He won the election.
Underhill: Hopefully by a landslide!
Pilon: He won by a good margin, and he was just a great guy. We graduated in the same class, he was a classmate of mine. Yeah! we won that election! And he and Rafer Johnson were the only two black student body presidents in the United States of America. It made Time magazine, it made Life, it made a bunch of news magazines. Rafer Johnson was an automatic, because he was such a great Olympian-he was a decathlon athlete. But Charlie was just plain ordinary Charlie, graduated Flag High, was an athlete at Flagstaff High School-good guy, very good guy.
Underhill: And what other kind of external events do you think impacted Arizona State College during those years? You’ve mentioned Sputnik and [unclear], but anything else that you recall that impacted the campus? Barry Goldwater [unclear].
Pilon: Yeah, Goldwater coming here. The rumor-well, it wasn’t a rumor-the campaign that Arizona State College in Tempe, Arizona, was going to become Arizona State University, that impacted that campus. We were furious over that. And for the most part, we students up here refused to sign that petition, and urged our parents not to sign that petition. We thought, "Who do they think they are, becoming Arizona State University?! They’re Arizona State College, just like we are." And I think it was a situation of jealousy. I look back on it now, and it’s kind of silly, because I know our sister-in-law, Linda’s sister, came up here with a petition. She just thought sure that her sister and new brother-in-law would fill that petition with students on the campus. And we said, "No, we don’t want to have that petition here, and you can go right back to Phoenix!" Well, they became Arizona State University, it won. And then soon after that, in ’66, I believe it was, we did become Northern Arizona University, which was great. But that was a big issue.
Underhill: You’ve been, of course, involved with the university for many, many years now. What are some of the big changes that you’ve observed since your graduation?
Pilon: Well you know first I’ll say concerning that, I don’t know if I’m rare or not. My family, my children and my grandchildren, think I’m a weird bird because I never left Northern Arizona University. I studied at other universities. I mean, I was a graduate student at Lehigh University, I had a fellowship at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I had a fellowship at Lehigh. I studied at Arizona State University for a master’s degree-didn’t get it, but I was studying there for it, and applied those hours. And I studied at the University of Notre Dame. So I did attend a lot of universities, but I always was involved with NAU. It just seemed like I had that athletic interest here, and I was a letterman here, and I just had that interest in Northern Arizona University and anything that they did. And I was always involved with the alumni association. We used to have chapters, and soon after I got to Phoenix and started teaching, I joined the NAU alumni chapter in Phoenix. I think the day that I joined, I was elected secretary. And soon after that, I think less than a year later, I was the treasurer. And probably about a year after that, I was the vice-president. Then I became the president. Then I was nominated and was awarded the-they used to have it, they don’t have it anymore-the junior alumni award for Northern Arizona University, for somebody that had been out of school less than ten years. And then eventually I was named-I guess it would be the senior, but they didn’t call it that-I was given the alumni achievement award, Northern Arizona University. And so that just kept spurring my interest. Then I’d be invited to campus for different events, and I would come up. And it just stayed with me. Like today, I’m chairman of the leadership council for the college of education. Then I was eventually elected the president of the national alumni association, and serve now on the advisory board for that national alumni association. I just came from the meeting, to come here. And I have occasionally given lectures on the campus. I gave one just two weeks ago. I love that. I just remain involved. I came up here, and I’m involved as far as I can, with finances for the college of education. My wife and I offer a scholarship each academic year. And we’ve made sizeable donations-we think-to the college of social and behavioral sciences, which went toward the application of the Native American Cultural Center. And I donate money to the athletic department because I’m still interested in NAU athletics. So I try to keep my money going here to the university. And it’s not millions, but it’s what we can do.
Underhill: We need to change a tape, we we’re going to stop for just a moment, and then we have another twenty minutes or so before the bell rings.

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Charles "Chuck" Pilon Part 1
Interviewed by Karen Underhill
Camera by Susan McGlothlin
October 21, 2011
Underhill: So I will set the stage here. It is Friday, October 21, 2011, and we’re in the Cline Library Presidents Room. This will be an interview with Charles, aka Chuck, Pilon. Present in the room is Susan McGlothlin, who is assisting with the camera. This is part of the Lumberjacks Timbers Project, as we call it, so an oral history project with alumni.
Pilon: That’s great.
Underhill: So Chuck, if we could, could you please start with where and when you were born?
Pilon: I was born in Durango, Colorado-the original Durango Kid. I was born February 23, 1933, in a home with no attending physician. The home was still there [unclear] make it a national monument one of these days. But I’ve been bragging for years that I was born in that house. I told my entire family, all my children and everything, until I told the story to my mother, and my mother said, "You weren’t born in that house, you were born down the street in this house." So the park service has had to change their signs. Just kidding!
Underhill: What was your early childhood like, who were your parents?
Pilon: Well, my early childhood was very different maybe from some people. My dad was a cowboy. He was a working cowboy south of Durango, in the earliest ranches, and he made a dollar a day. I always knew that as a kid, and even as a kid I thought, "That doesn’t sound like very much money." But a dollar a day. I thought I had a great life. We lived with my maternal grandmother and grandfather, who was a railroad worker for the Denver Rio Grande Railroad. And that’s how I got all the free rides on the Durango Silverton Railroad, which is very famous today as a tourist attraction. I hated riding that train because it scared the dickens out of me going to Silverton to see my other grandmother, my dad’s mom. And I went through school in Durango, Colorado, Park School, to the fourth grade. I started the fourth grade there. Absolutely loved going to school there. And I must have been underprivileged a little bit-didn’t know it-because one of my teachers would pick me up almost every Saturday-my third-grade teacher-in a great big huge Buick car-and take me and a number of kids for sometimes an ice cream cone, sometimes a picnic where Fort Lewis College is located now. I realized later that yeah, we were from a lower socio-economic family, and I think she kind of felt sorry for me. I was a pretty good student. She wrote a lot of notes to my mother about this wonderful little boy, Charles. I loved that lady, and I visited her on my honeymoon.
Underhill: And what is her name?
Pilon: Her name was Frances Baldino. Miss Baldino, and I just loved her. And we had to move away because my dad got a job on the railroad in Winslow, making $200 a month.
Underhill: Wow.
Pilon: Yes, from a dollar a day to $200 a month. So we moved to Winslow, and that’s where I spent the remainder of my elementary school days, and graduated from Winslow High School.
Underhill: And what year did you graduate?
Pilon: I graduated in 1951, and just less than a month ago I celebrated my sixtieth high school reunion with fifteen of my classmates, at the famous La Posada Hotel in Winslow.
Underhill: Fabulous.
Pilon: And it was just wonderful. I mean, it was so great to be with those people. Some of them I hadn’t seen in sixty years.
Underhill: And when you were in high school, what sorts of activities were you engaged in, what were your interests?
Pilon: I would call myself probably an athlete. I played football and baseball for Winslow High School. I was also interested in plays. I had the lead part in my junior class play, and had a supporting role in my senior class play. And I liked to sing in the glee club, and I played in the band until I was a freshman in high school. My football coach said, "You either play in the band, or you play football. Which one do you want?" Now, as an adult, I should have stayed with the band. I could have been a decent musician today, because I never was a pro football player-although I did play football here at NAU, was on the team here.
Underhill: So after high school, did you go into the military?
Pilon: Yeah, after high school was another great big huge chapter for me because Korea was really bad. South Korea was invaded in June of 1950, and in 1951 it was even getting hotter. It was just a terrible situation. I didn’t want to get drafted, because I didn’t want to go to Korea. They were sending all the Army guys over there. I didn’t want to join the Marine Corps, because they were going to Korea. Didn’t want to join the Navy because I can’t swim. So I joined the Air Force. I saw a poster across the street from the drugstore of the famous "Standing on the Corner in Winslow Arizona." I looked out the window and I thought, "Well, my parents don’t have the money to send me to college." I did receive one football scholarship when I was in high school, to Eastern Arizona College at Thatcher, but I didn’t want to play football for such a big, fantastic.... No, I’m just kidding. I didn’t want to go to school there. And this buddy of mine said, "What are you going to do?" And I said, "Gee, I don’t know." I looked across the street at the poster, and it had a picture of a blue-clad Airman, in a pretty blue uniform. And he had his finger pointed out, sort of in the Uncle Sam pose, and he said, "And you too can wear the blue." Kind of a little rhyme. I thought, "I’d look good in that." So I went across the street without consulting anybody, and I said, "I want to join the Air Force." He said, "Do you want to join for four years or six years?" How dumb I was, I said, "Gee, I don’t know." I think he felt sorry for me. He said, "I’ll tell you what, I’ll put you down for four. If you like it, then you can re-sign for six." "Oh! that’s a good idea!" So I did, and soon after I found myself in Korea, so everybody was going over there. So I left Winslow on a Trailways Bus for Phoenix, took a physical exam, and boarded a train headed for San Antonio, Texas, Lackland Air Force Base, where I went through my first two weeks of basic training. And because it was so crowded with so many men joining the Air Force-an all-volunteer Air Force, always has been, and still is-we had a fifty-something-bus convoy, Greyhound Bus convoy, that shipped the entire squadron and part of the wing to Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, where I finished my basic training. And when I finished there, lo and behold I’m assigned to the army! I’m Air Force and they assign me to the 4th Army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, back to San Antonio, to train as a combat medic. I was training and graduated from medical field combat school, and was trained to be a company aid man with an infantry platoon. And the rumor was we were going to be assigned to the infantry and go straight to Korea. And medics at that time had like a fifteen-minute lifespan, and that scared me. So after I graduated Fort Sam Houston, when I was not assigned to an infantry unit, assigned back to an Air Force squadron, and soon after I flew air-and-sea rescue as a crewman. And then eventually went on air evac and we evacuated people from Korea that were hit, and a lot of KIAs brought back home.
Underhill: And after Korea [unclear].
Pilon: Well, I was discharged in ’55, and I thought very seriously about going to the University of Notre Dame. But then I’d been gone for four years, and I didn’t have many leaves home. I don’t know if I should say this in this interview or not, but I was very serious with a young girl in high school, and it took about a month for her to write me a Dear John, and that just tore me up. Anyway, I thought, "I think I’m going to stick around home." And I always liked Arizona State College in Flagstaff, Arizona. And there’s something about the college I just loved. My coach was a college graduate from Arizona State College, and was my football coach in high school. He was a big all-American here at NAU, and captain of the football team, drafted by the Rams. He made such an impression on my life. And I thought about him, and he was always promoting ASC. So I applied, and when I got that little tiny certificate in the mail that said, "Certificate of Admission. You are hereby admitted to Arizona State College in Flagstaff," I thought that was like the greatest certificate I ever received in my life! I equal that to my honorable discharge.
And so I got up and came here and boy, I’ve never been sorry for one day-not one day. It’s been an experience and a half.
Underhill: That’s wonderful. So when you came, you were a seasoned war veteran. You were four years older than most freshmen. (Pilon: Right.) What were your impressions, your first impressions?
Pilon: You know, I just got through telling the story today to somebody for some reason. My impression was, "Oh, my God, I hope I don’t fail." I hadn’t hit a book in four years. I was not a fabulous student in high school, although I never failed anything. I was like a "C" student-didn’t study. If I’d have studied, maybe I could have been an "A" student. Never made National Honor Society or anything like that, because I didn’t study. I had a lot of fun. I was a serious student, but I didn’t think beyond high school. And then in service I didn’t think beyond four years, because I thought, "Well, four years is never going to end. It’s going to last forever." And then sometimes while I was in, I didn’t think I’d make it back. I thought, "I’m not going to survive this. I just won’t make it."
But then when I got here, I was scared because I didn’t want to fail. And I felt challenged because I was trying as hard as I could, and I made up my mind, "I’m not going to fail, I’m going to be a success." Because my ambition from the time I was a little boy was, "I have to go to college and graduate some day, and I have to marry a girl that graduated from college. And all my children, however many amount we have, they have to go to college." That was some kind of a dream that I had, and this ideal was very important to me. And so I studied like crazy here, and my freshman year I had one date. I played football and baseball, didn’t do anything else but study. And I was very successful, I made the dean’s list both semesters, because of my professors. I mean, they took me under their [wing]. They recognized I was [unclear]. I didn’t have any civilian clothes, I wore my uniform to class. I took everything [i.e., insignia] off, but they recognized I was wearing a uniform. In the wintertime I’m wearing my field jacket, my flight jacket. They recognized. But my attitude was, "Why is everybody so happy here on this campus? Why are people laughing? Don’t you realize what took place over there?" I mean, there were guys that were dying over there, and maimed-they’re walking around here today. And I had a chip on my shoulder, and I had problems with that. And a man by the name of Dr. Virgil Gillenwater-Gillenwater Hall was named after him-who was executive vice-president of the university, one day met me on the sidewalk in front of the old library, Gammage. He said, "Chuck, how you doin’?" I said, "Well, I’m studying real hard, and still kind of scared." He said, "Well, you’re pretty successful. You’ve done very well here. I know." We had less than a thousand students, so he knew everybody. And he said, "When you get a chance, would you come over and talk with me. I want to talk to you." I didn’t think anything of it. And I said, "Sure, when?" He said, "You free this afternoon?" Well, I lived in the library. I said, "Well, I was going to the library, but I guess I could go afterwards." He said, "C’mon over to my office," in Gammage. And I walked over, we sat down, he said, "How are things going? How are you adjusting? You were in the Air Force-where did you go?" and so forth and so on. And I started getting a little testy, with that chip on my shoulder-but not testy towards him, because he was such a great man. He said, "Just a minute, let me close the door." So he closed the door, which appeared to be normal to me. I thought, you know, he wants privacy. But as I learned later what a great psychologist he was, he closed the door, and on the back of his door was a marine corps dress uniform, sharp as could be, with all of his ribbons and the major oak leaf cluster on his shoulder. And of course I zeroed in on the ribbons because I had a few myself. I recognized the Purple Heart, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, five Bronze Stars on the Asiatic Pacific Medal, which meant five major engagements. And I just, "Oh!" I know that I thought, "Oh my God!" And he never said a word. He never said a word, and I stared at that uniform, I stared at him, and he said, "Anything else we need to talk about?" I wanted to say, "No sir, I got the message. You’ve been through it and you survived and you’re doin’ okay, and ‘Chuck, you need to straighten up and lighten up!’" That’s the greatest thing that happened to me concerning that particular aspect of my life. And after that, I was okay. What a great thing he did! He didn’t lecture me, he didn’t chew me out, he didn’t scream and yell at me. He just closed the door and let me look at his uniform. I found out later he’d been a Marine Corps raider in the South Pacific and had a great combat record, and so I loved the man.
Underhill: What was campus like at that time-a mix of returning veterans?
Pilon: There were a lot of returning Korean War veterans. Some of my professors were World War II veterans. Dr. Charles Meister, who I loved, he was my English teacher, he was a staff judge advocate at the Nuremberg trials in Germany. He took me under his wing. He said, "I’ll show you how to be a good student," and he gave me some suggestions. I followed them to the letter. And Francis Davern was a Flying Tiger in World War II. He was an education professor here. Oh gosh, there were a lot of World War II veterans [who were] professors. But a lot of the students were returning veterans, and we knew each other, and it kind of formed an unofficial group with great camaraderie. We didn’t necessarily talk about our war experiences or anything like that, but we just knew what each other was going through. And one particular veteran I remember really had some traumatic experiences. He was having hallucinations that they were still after him and everything, and we took care of him. We looked after him, took care of him, and he was one of us. We were all on the G.I. Bill. I can remember my G.I. check being late every so often. It was Public Law 550. And I’d walk into the registrar’s office, which was in Gammage-Mr. Hensley was the registrar-"Mr. Hensley," I said, "my check hasn’t come in yet, and I need to register for the next semester." "Don’t worry about it. Register for classes and let me know when it comes in." That’s the way things were done then.
Underhill: That’s great.
Pilon: That’s the way things were. You couldn’t do that now for anything. You could not do it. They’d say, "Sorry, you’ll have to leave the university." But he understood, he knew. And he played kind of favorites with the returning veterans. He treated us real well. And I think everybody on campus recognized that. But yeah, you’re right, I was four years older than my roommate that was an incoming freshman student from North High.
Underhill: How did that go?
Pilon: Oh, it wasn’t good. He was crying one night, laying in his bunk. Crying! I thought he was sick, so I turned on the light and I said, "Kenny, what’s wrong? Tell me, why are you crying?" He said, "I miss my girlfriend." I thought, "You’ve gotta be kidding me!" I said, "Well, where is your girlfriend?" I expected him to say, "New York City." [He said], "Phoenix." I said, "Oh, man, I’ve been gone for four years! Don’t tell me this stuff!" Kind of a funny incident occurred with him one time. I had just gotten back from football practice and I was really sore. I crawled into my bunk in Bury Hall, and I’m laying there, trying to relax, because I was really getting beat that day, and he came in crying, soaking wet! And he turned on the light, I looked at him, and he was crying, literally crying, and it was a cry of pain, a different sort of cry than he had that night missing his girlfriend. I jumped up and I said, "Kenny, what happened to you, what’s going on?!" He said, "The Chain Gang beat me." And that was the day that they did that hazing, and they beat him. Oh, he took down his pants and showed me. I mean this guy probably should have been in the emergency room-broken blood vessels all over his back and his buttocks and his legs. It just made me furious. I thought, "God, do we have a POW here that’s been taken care of?!" And he was soaking wet, they’d hosed him down. And he said, "They’re coming back to get me." And I said, "Well, they’re not taking you." "They’re going to force me! These guys are mean!" They were the Chain Gang! I mean, they ruled the campus. So sure enough, they opened up the door-we didn’t lock our doors-I could have-he opened up the door and said, "Okay, freshman, get out here!" I said, "You need to get out of here!" And he said, "You too! you’re a freshman!" And I very dramatically-I’ll never forget this-said, "Yeah, and before then I was a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force in Korea." And they said, "Oh, well you’re exempt." Veterans, of course, didn’t have to go through hazing.
Underhill: Or wear a beanie?
Pilon: Or wear a beanie. We wouldn’t have taken that, and they knew it! And he said [to my roommate], "Well, you’re not a veteran. Come on!" I said, "No, you’re not taking him out of here. You’ve done enough damage to him already." "Well, we’re taking him out anyway!" I said, "Well, you have to come through me." And some of those guys, I didn’t want to tangle with, but I bluffed them, so they left him in the room. Needless to say, two years later, I was nominated for the Chain Gang, which was kind of an honor at the time. And I was not given membership. They remembered that incident! Every time I see the Chain Gang today, I think about that incident.
Underhill: We won’t bring out the sweater!
Pilon: It’s like red with [unclear].
Underhill: And where did you eat, was there just a single dining hall?
Pilon: Yeah, there was one dining hall, and it is now the conference room that they call the 1899 Grill Conference Room. The High Country Center or something. No, the High Country Center is across the street. In fact, I just came from there, from a meeting. And that was the dining hall. And the Union Building was truly a union building. There were pool tables upstairs, and ping pong tables, and the beautiful copper fireplace was a true fireplace with logs and everything. And the windows, you could look out and see the San Francisco Peaks, which you can do anymore because [unclear]. And the little tiny book store was in there, which didn’t sell any apparel whatsoever-strictly books, pens, and pencils. And the post office was there, all the students had their little mailbox. And there was a snack bar behind there called the Timber Inn, and we could get hamburgers there. Then on certain nights, you could dance. They’d turn on the juke box and you could dance. It was just great. And it was only the north part of the campus. There was nothing here, this was all forest. South Campus was all forest. The furthest you could go north that would have anything that would be civilization, would be the stone cottages, which is now a parking place right next to the field house, just west of the field house there-which [unclear] lived in when I got married. But yeah, that was our campus. Married housing was the furthest ... south, I meant. The furthest north was the Union Building. It was just a little intimate campus, the north campus. And it was fabulous. Well, it just set the tone for me with NAU. I just loved the place, and still do.
Underhill: And what did you study when you were here?
Pilon: I started out being-I didn’t study it, but I started out, my ambition was, I was going to be a football coach. And I did become a football coach. But I didn’t want to be a P.E. major. That just didn’t appeal to me as a field of academics. I wanted to have an academic degree, so I studied social science. And at that time social science was not any of the disciplines that we have now, separately, like you study political science, anthropology, sociology. You had to study them all, because there was just only one social science department. So I concentrated on sociology, but I took, of course, a lot of political science and anthropology, and all the rest of the social sciences-history, geography. And I hit it lucky, because I studied under a giant, a giant of a man, a man by the name of Dr. Edward Walker, who was a one-man show in sociology here. And I just thought he was the epitome of knowledge. And I did my graduate work at the University of Notre Dame. And when I was being interviewed for my doctorate there, the chairman of the department wasn’t too interested in me. He wasn’t rude, but he wasn’t very interested in me, and he was just kind of going through the routine of whether I was going to be accepted or not. "Where did you study?" "Arizona State College in Flagstaff, Arizona." "Oh. Where is that?" I said, "Well, it’s in Northern Arizona, [unclear] in Flagstaff." "Oh yeah. Who did you study under?," like it was some big university, you know. And I told him the truth, I said I studied under a man by the name of Dr. Edward Walker. He sat forward in his chair and he said, "Edward Walker?!" I said, "Yes." "We use his books here," and he pulled them down. "This is the man you studied under?" and it had a picture of him in the inside cover. I said, "Yes, that’s him." He said, "Did you know that he set up the sociology school at Stanford University? He’s thought of as a giant in this field." I said, "Yes, I knew that." I didn’t, but I could have guessed. And I don’t think he made another statement [other than], "Oh, fine. Well, see my secretary, and you just fill out these papers, and congratulations." There was no problem whatsoever. He was recognized nationally as a giant in his field. And I came back and told the story to Dr. Walker one time. He just got a kick out of it. "Well, I tried to convince you one time that I was very famous." We laughed about it, you know. But, what a great man. I was so lucky to have the professors that I did have here. All buildings are named after [them]. Dr. Tinsley was my history professor. Dr. Gillenwater, a great man. Dr. Allen, my science professor. I mean, all the names on the buildings, I was so lucky to have the faculty that I had. They were great people, they were interested in every student, didn’t want any of us to fail, would do anything to keep us here and make us successful. It was a great experience.
Underhill: One of the questions we ask, which you’ve really just answered, is how valuable was your experience and education here, that set you on the path....
Pilon: I think it was really valuable. You only get what you put into it, you know. And because I wanted to be a good student, and I wasn’t such a good student in high school.... I was very successful in the military, I won a lot of awards in the military for achievement, and I guess you could call it academic, but it’s not the same as college. But I wanted to be successful, and I worked so very, very hard at it. It didn’t come automatic to me. But I got such a great opportunity to be successful here. I mean, it was not difficult at all. And all the great things that have ever happened to me in my life-and I’ve been lucky-they kind of all fall back on my background at NAU. I love this place.
Underhill: What were the big issues on campus during your time-1955 to 1959.
Pilon: Well, internally, one of the big issues was the food. NAU did not have a registered, certified dietician. It was a lady from town that prepared the meals for the staff. It was okay to me. I’d been eating military food-you know, better than "C" rations, "K" rations. But there was a big food fight one time in the dining hall, which I thoroughly disagreed with. I mean, I thought people don’t understand-you don’t know what’s good or bad. I mean, this is pretty good. And Dr. Eastburn was the first president that I served under here as a student. He would go out and hunt a buffalo, and bring the buffalo back, and that’s what we would have to eat for weeks on end. I loved it. It was fresh meat, it was prepared well. But that was a big problem for students-food. That was an internal problem. Other problems were what is going to happen with this college with the launching of Sputnik? The emphasis became science and math here, and all of us were going to switch over our majors to science and math because we had to meet this challenge. Oh, there was still partisan politics issues here. I remember we, just a group of us, invited Senator Barry Goldwater to speak on campus. Dr. Walkup was of the opposite political party, so we were kind of chewed out. And he said, "Don’t you ever invite anybody to this campus again without notifying me who it’s going to be." And we never made that mistake again. Another issue, which is kind of humorous now as I look back, after I got married we lived in married housing, and we all received a notice in our mailboxes that the rent was going to go up for the cottages, married families, from $35 to $40 a month. And of course all utilities were paid, all we paid was just rent. But they were very crude. We did have running water and electricity and everything, but pretty crude. The showers I wouldn’t brag about, or anything else. But hey, we’re college students. And I’d been living in a tent, so I thought it was great. And so I was like appointed or some.... There were fifty cottages, and they appointed me as the chairman to get a petition signed and take it to Dr. Walkup and petition that this was unfair, and we wanted it lowered back to $35. Still hadn’t made one $40 payment, though. And so I made an appointment, very nervous-like, with Dr. Walkup. I think I was one of the few returning veterans that was married, too, at the time. Maybe that’s why they picked me, I don’t know. But I walked into Dr. Walkup’s office, a very nervous individual-I’m facing the president, you know. "Dr. Walkup, I need to discuss something with you." And of course the appointment was made beforehand. And he looked up at me-such a relaxed man anyway-and he said, "What’s the problem?" I said, "Well, Dr. Walkup, you’ve raised the rent...." And I went through the entire scenario. And he said, "Well, what do you want?" I said, "We’d like it to remain $35. We’re having a hard time. Only make $110 a month, my G.I. Bill." "Oh. Well, I didn’t realize that. Okay. It’s going to be $35." And I expected a big argument and everything else. So I went back and told the rest of the fifty families, I said, "Hey, it’s going to remain $35." I was the big here. I was the big hero on campus for a while with the married families. But Dr. Walkup was a great man, and I so respected him. He was such a great man to me. You could talk to him any time about any problem. And he remained that way with me for the rest of his life. I considered him a good friend.
Underhill: Did you call him Larry?
Pilon: I never did. I never could get myself to call him Larry. And I can’t to this day call his wife Lucy. It’s Mrs. Walkup, and she always corrects me. And she was there at the luncheon today, that I attended, and Mrs. Walkup. "It’s Lucy, Chuck." And I said, "Not to me." No, it was always Dr. Walkup.
Underhill: And how did you meet your wife?
Pilon: Interesting story, because she was a freshman, I was a sophomore. I’d just gotten out of football practice, and the statement made in the locker room was, "Hey, all the freshmen are here today. They’re coming in today." And this was in the evening at practice. "Let’s all go over and date freshmen girls!" And I thought, "That’s not a bad idea! I’ve only had one date since I’ve been here. I’d like to meet a freshman girl." So I did! I walked over, and I used the ruse of selling books. I took my freshman English book over, "Anyone want to buy a freshman English book?" I didn’t get any takers, but I spotted this little blond sitting down over there with her new roommate, and she was just.... I just kind of fell in love with her at first sight. I was like, "She is so pretty!" And I walked over to her, "Would you like to buy a freshman English book?" "No." I said, "Well, it’s hardly even used. I didn’t write in it or anything." "I want to buy a brand new book." But first, I forgot, one important thing: they had to wear a card that said, "Hi, I’m ..." and then they filled in their name, "from ..." and they put their hometown. So her card said, "Hi, I’m Linda Monroe from Phoenix, Arizona." And she had to wear a little blue-and-gold beanie. She had that on. And so I obviously looked at her card and I said, "Oh, hi, Linda Monroe," and she said, "I’m not related to Marilyn either." And I thought, "Oh, give me a break!" And she wouldn’t buy the book, so we talked for the longest time about the high school she went to, where she lived in Phoenix, and my parents had just moved down there. Then I used a very dumb line on her, I said, "You know, you don’t know much about Flagstaff. How about we make a deal. I’ll show you Flagstaff if you show me Phoenix?" She just kind of looked at me-never did answer. Our daughter is going to get a big kick out of that one. But anyway, I didn’t ask her for a date, but I thought, "I need to ask her for a date." I didn’t have guts enough to.
Underhill: Staff sergeant!
Pilon: Yeah! I went back to the dorm and I thought, "God, what if somebody else asks her for a date and I miss out?!" Because I heard somebody in the dorm say, "Did you see that girl, Linda Monroe? She’s really cute." "Stay away from her!" So I went back the next day, looking for her. I’m actually looking for her, and I have my letter jacket thrown over my shoulder, just playin’ the role. It wasn’t cold enough to wear a letter jacket, but I wanted her to see that I was a letterman on the football team here. And so I went back, looking desperately for her, in the Union Building, and I noticed somebody walk by me, but I didn’t look at them, but somebody said, "Hi, Chuck," and I just kind of said, "Hi. I’m looking for Linda Monroe." And it was her. And it kind of infuriated her, I found out later, that I didn’t even answer her. So she went and got in line, and the line stretched from the entrance to that conference room now, out into the Union Building, about in the middle of the Union Building, waiting to get in the dining room. The football team ate at a training table, so I’d already eaten. And so I looked over at the line and thought, "My God, that’s that girl!" So I kind of yelled at her, and I was too far away from her, really, to be doing that. I said, "Hey, Linda!" and she turned around and looked at me, and I said, "C’m’ere!" She said, "If you want to talk to me, you come over here!" And my daughter loved that! "Yeah! way to go, Mom!" So I thought, "Who does she think she is?!" as I’m walking towards her. So I talked with her and I asked her for a date. And we dated every single night the rest of the school year! That was in August, because they came up the first part of August. And that December, we were engaged. And the following August, we were married. And we just celebrated in August our fifty-fourth wedding anniversary.
Underhill: Congratulations!
Pilon: It was a good deal. It was a good decision on my part.
Underhill: And so what did you do for fun-you and your friends and Linda?
Pilon: Well, one of the greatest things we did for fun was go to movies. The Orpheum Theater downtown was just in great, great shape, so popular, all the movies of the day. And whenever we had any spare money, and the movie changed, that’s where we went.
And the other thing that we did, because it was such a great treat, is go to two or three little restaurants in town and order a hamburger, French fries, and a Coke, and maybe a piece of pie afterwards, if we had extra money. But that was kind of like our entertainment. Any athletic event on the campus was something we’d go to. Any concert, anything with the Shrine of the Ages Choir, plays we’d go to. We kind of made our own entertainment, in a way. And it was pretty unsophisticated. It was strictly around campus. We didn’t do much in town except go to the movies.
Underhill: How would you describe the relationship, the town-and-gown, [between] the college and Flagstaff?
Pilon: At the time, I didn’t have much to do with the town, but I do know at the time there was an organization called the Town Jacks. And they were an organization of Flagstaff businessmen who supported the college in athletics. And I thought that was petty neat. But it appeared to me, as a student, to be-there was a kind of a schism between the Flagstaff community and the college in that "those college kids really think they’re somethin’ else, and they’re not." And I know President Eastburn started a program, which I thought was great. I don’t know if it started with us, but it existed here. They called it Dollar Days, where you would turn in all money that you had-currency-for silver dollars. And then you’d take those silver dollars and spend them in Flagstaff to go to a movie, buy an article of clothing, to go to a restaurant, or whatever. And then that way the Flagstaff business community would recognize every silver dollar they got came from a college student. I thought that was great. I thought that was really great. And then we had a caravan that we did once a year at the beginning of the school year, where we would have a barbecue at the Grand Canyon. We’d drive in a huge, huge convoy of cars-we’d all carpool together, you know. I had a car. I was one of the few students who had a car here-bought it with my mustering-out pay. And we’d go to the Grand Canyon and they’d set up barbecue equipment there. The dining hall did it. And we’d have a big barbecue there and come back. And that was like a major date that I had with my wife, one of the first times I asked her to go. She trusted me, I guess, so she went to the Grand Canyon with me, and came back, and that kind of solidified the relationship even more.
Underhill: What kind of car was it?
Pilon: I had a ’55 Chevy that I paid a huge down payment on, getting out of the Air Force. I had $1,200 mustering-out pay. They get now $20,000-$30,000. Twelve hundred dollars, I think. And I paid $1,000 even, and my payments were $33 a month. I don’t know for how many months, but that was my car payment.
Underhill: And I should add you were married in 1957.
Pilon: I was married in ’57, that’s right. That’s correct.
Underhill: Did you have any children while you were here?
Pilon: We had our first born, a boy, born in Flagstaff, Terry. He’s a graduate of NAU. And that used to be something I’d dream about as I’m walking on the campus with Linda and him in the stroller. "I wonder what’s going to happen to him? [unclear] college?" And sure enough, he graduated from NAU, and that was a great day in my life, yeah. And we lived in Cottage City with him. I would schedule Linda’s classes so she would be with him or I would be with him. He was never without one of us while we were in school, except one semester there was a period of time for one class that there was nobody to take care of him. So I told Linda, "I will take him to class with me." And nothing was ever said! I would take him to class, and we’d sit there in class. It was great, I loved it! All the girls loved it-they’d come over and make over him and everything. But it only happened one time.
Underhill: How long did you play sports-all four years?
Pilon: No, I played two years of football here, and one year of baseball, and then I got an ACL injury in this leg, this knee. And at the time, they couldn’t even diagnose an ACL, so they just shot me full of cortisone and drained my knee-every third day, I think-of fluid. I went back and played a couple of games, and then after that the physicians told me-Dr. Dierker, I think it was-"If you continue to play, you will be crippled before you’re sixty." And of course I have a very bad knee today, it still gives me trouble. And I couldn’t play again, and I started coaching.
Underhill: In terms of the student body, you talked, of course, a little bit about this mix of veterans and the eighteen-year-old freshmen. How would you describe the diversity of the student body? Did you have native students, Native Americans, Hispanics?
Pilon: Good question. Most of the student body was Caucasian, but we did have a great percentage of the student body that was Hispanic. Everybody got along just great. Probably the next group would be Native Americans. The very last group would be black. When I was a student here, I had one black teammate on the football team, no black teammates on the baseball team. And we had the second black president of any major school or university in the nation. The very first was the great Olympian athlete, Rafer Johnson, who was student body president at UCLA. We were next with a guy by the name of Charlie Williams, who graduated from Flagstaff High School, and he won the student body presidency here. And it was a bitter, bitter, contested fight. I was on the committee to elect him. And there were terrible things that were said and done. There used to be a sign in front of the Union Building, which is now the 1899 Grill, that said, "Arizona State College, Home of the Lumberjacks." I loved that sign. The sign was changed during this campaign. It said, "Arizona State College, Home of the Blackjacks." That infuriated us, and really put Charlie down, and he wanted to withdraw. We said, "No, that’s going to cause you to win. We’re going to turn that around." And then there was another sign that was closer to Old Main that said something like, "Arizona State College in the Pines." Something like that. "Arizona State College in the Pines." And that sign was changed to read, "Arizona State College, Harlem in the Pines." He won the election.
Underhill: Hopefully by a landslide!
Pilon: He won by a good margin, and he was just a great guy. We graduated in the same class, he was a classmate of mine. Yeah! we won that election! And he and Rafer Johnson were the only two black student body presidents in the United States of America. It made Time magazine, it made Life, it made a bunch of news magazines. Rafer Johnson was an automatic, because he was such a great Olympian-he was a decathlon athlete. But Charlie was just plain ordinary Charlie, graduated Flag High, was an athlete at Flagstaff High School-good guy, very good guy.
Underhill: And what other kind of external events do you think impacted Arizona State College during those years? You’ve mentioned Sputnik and [unclear], but anything else that you recall that impacted the campus? Barry Goldwater [unclear].
Pilon: Yeah, Goldwater coming here. The rumor-well, it wasn’t a rumor-the campaign that Arizona State College in Tempe, Arizona, was going to become Arizona State University, that impacted that campus. We were furious over that. And for the most part, we students up here refused to sign that petition, and urged our parents not to sign that petition. We thought, "Who do they think they are, becoming Arizona State University?! They’re Arizona State College, just like we are." And I think it was a situation of jealousy. I look back on it now, and it’s kind of silly, because I know our sister-in-law, Linda’s sister, came up here with a petition. She just thought sure that her sister and new brother-in-law would fill that petition with students on the campus. And we said, "No, we don’t want to have that petition here, and you can go right back to Phoenix!" Well, they became Arizona State University, it won. And then soon after that, in ’66, I believe it was, we did become Northern Arizona University, which was great. But that was a big issue.
Underhill: You’ve been, of course, involved with the university for many, many years now. What are some of the big changes that you’ve observed since your graduation?
Pilon: Well you know first I’ll say concerning that, I don’t know if I’m rare or not. My family, my children and my grandchildren, think I’m a weird bird because I never left Northern Arizona University. I studied at other universities. I mean, I was a graduate student at Lehigh University, I had a fellowship at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I had a fellowship at Lehigh. I studied at Arizona State University for a master’s degree-didn’t get it, but I was studying there for it, and applied those hours. And I studied at the University of Notre Dame. So I did attend a lot of universities, but I always was involved with NAU. It just seemed like I had that athletic interest here, and I was a letterman here, and I just had that interest in Northern Arizona University and anything that they did. And I was always involved with the alumni association. We used to have chapters, and soon after I got to Phoenix and started teaching, I joined the NAU alumni chapter in Phoenix. I think the day that I joined, I was elected secretary. And soon after that, I think less than a year later, I was the treasurer. And probably about a year after that, I was the vice-president. Then I became the president. Then I was nominated and was awarded the-they used to have it, they don’t have it anymore-the junior alumni award for Northern Arizona University, for somebody that had been out of school less than ten years. And then eventually I was named-I guess it would be the senior, but they didn’t call it that-I was given the alumni achievement award, Northern Arizona University. And so that just kept spurring my interest. Then I’d be invited to campus for different events, and I would come up. And it just stayed with me. Like today, I’m chairman of the leadership council for the college of education. Then I was eventually elected the president of the national alumni association, and serve now on the advisory board for that national alumni association. I just came from the meeting, to come here. And I have occasionally given lectures on the campus. I gave one just two weeks ago. I love that. I just remain involved. I came up here, and I’m involved as far as I can, with finances for the college of education. My wife and I offer a scholarship each academic year. And we’ve made sizeable donations-we think-to the college of social and behavioral sciences, which went toward the application of the Native American Cultural Center. And I donate money to the athletic department because I’m still interested in NAU athletics. So I try to keep my money going here to the university. And it’s not millions, but it’s what we can do.
Underhill: We need to change a tape, we we’re going to stop for just a moment, and then we have another twenty minutes or so before the bell rings.